Selective Obedience of the Law - Nullification Then, Sanctuary Cities Today
October 21, 2026
Can a state refuse to enforce a federal law it considers unconstitutional? This question nearly brought the United States to armed conflict in 1832, when South Carolina challenged federal authority during the Nullification Crisis. Although the confrontation ended peacefully, it exposed fundamental disagreements about state sovereignty, federal authority, and the nature of the American Union. Nearly two centuries later, similar questions continue to arise in debates over immigration enforcement, sanctuary cities, and the constitutional limits of state power.
The crisis originated in economic changes following the War of 1812. Concerned about American dependence on foreign manufacturers, particularly for military supplies, Congress enacted protective tariffs intended to encourage domestic production. Beginning with the Tariff of 1816, these measures made imported goods more expensive, benefiting American manufacturers while increasing costs for consumers.
Southern plantation owners considered the tariffs particularly unfair. They relied heavily on imported manufactured goods, especially from Great Britain, and feared that restrictions on international trade would harm agricultural exports. By 1828, tariff increases had provoked such intense Southern opposition that the legislation became known as the “Tariff of Abominations.”
Yet the controversy involved more than economics. Southern slaveholders increasingly feared that the federal government might eventually threaten slavery. The Missouri Crisis of 1819–1820 had demonstrated growing Northern resistance to slavery’s expansion, while abolitionist movements were gaining strength in America and Britain. In South Carolina, where enslaved African Americans constituted a majority of the population, fears of slave rebellion heightened anxieties about the future.
These concerns shaped the thinking of John C. Calhoun, South Carolina’s leading advocate of nullification. Calhoun argued that the Constitution represented a compact among sovereign states, which had delegated certain powers to the federal government without surrendering their ultimate authority. Consequently, he maintained, individual states retained the right to determine whether federal legislation exceeded constitutional limits.
Calhoun proposed that a state could convene a special convention to evaluate disputed federal laws. If its delegates determined that a law violated the Constitution, the state could declare it unenforceable within its borders. He presented this procedure as a legitimate safeguard against federal overreach, drawing inspiration from the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, associated with James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Those resolutions had challenged the Alien and Sedition Acts, although Madison later rejected the suggestion that his arguments justified unilateral nullification.
The distinction was fundamental. Challenging a law’s constitutionality was one thing; claiming that an individual state possessed the authority to invalidate federal legislation was something entirely different.
South Carolina put Calhoun’s theory into practice in November 1832, declaring the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 unconstitutional and prohibiting their enforcement within the state. President Andrew Jackson responded forcefully. Despite supporting states’ rights in other contexts, Jackson rejected the idea that individual states could choose which federal laws to obey.
In his December 10, 1832, proclamation to South Carolina, Jackson argued that nullification threatened the survival of constitutional government. If every state could independently determine which federal laws were binding, congressional authority would become meaningless. Jackson also rejected the related claim that states possessed a constitutional right to secede. Withdrawal from the Union, he maintained, would constitute revolution rather than the exercise of a lawful constitutional power. Abraham Lincoln would later employ similar reasoning when confronting Southern secession in 1861.
Jackson threatened military enforcement, raising the possibility of armed confrontation. Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky recognized an opportunity for compromise. Acknowledging that protective tariffs disproportionately benefited Northern manufacturers, Clay negotiated the Compromise Tariff of 1833, gradually reducing duties over nine years to approximately 20 percent or less by 1842.
Congress simultaneously passed the Force Bill, authorizing Jackson to enforce federal customs duties. South Carolina accepted the tariff compromise and withdrew its nullification of the tariffs, but symbolically nullified the Force Bill. Although the immediate crisis ended, the state deliberately preserved its claim that nullification remained constitutionally legitimate.
This final gesture revealed the confrontation’s deeper significance. South Carolina’s leaders were not simply seeking lower tariffs; they were attempting to establish a constitutional defense against future legislation threatening slavery. If Northern majorities could impose tariffs over Southern objections, slaveholders feared those same majorities might eventually restrict or abolish slavery. Nullification offered a purported legal mechanism for preventing such legislation from operating within a slaveholding state.
Although the tariff dispute was resolved, Calhoun’s arguments survived as part of the intellectual foundation of the secession movement. The doctrine that individual states retained ultimate authority over federal legislation would become central to Southern efforts to justify leaving the Union in 1860–1861.
The Civil War did not eliminate disagreements over state and federal power. Similar questions appear today in controversies involving immigration enforcement and sanctuary cities. Some states and municipalities limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, prompting critics to compare these policies to South Carolina’s resistance in 1832.
There is, however, an important constitutional distinction. Under the Supreme Court’s anti-commandeering doctrine, the federal government generally cannot compel state officials to administer federal programs or enforce federal regulatory laws. A state or municipality that declines to provide personnel or resources for immigration enforcement is therefore not necessarily nullifying federal law. Federal immigration statutes remain operative, and federal officials retain their lawful enforcement authority.
The controversy becomes more complicated when state policies actively obstruct federal enforcement rather than merely declining assistance. Such disputes raise questions about the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and the boundaries between legitimate state independence and unconstitutional interference.
The question of obedience also raises a moral issue: What happens when individuals believe a law is unjust? Martin Luther King Jr. addressed this problem in his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail, defending conscientious resistance to unjust laws. Yet King’s argument differed fundamentally from Calhoun’s doctrine. King defended individual civil disobedience, including a willingness to accept legal consequences to expose injustice. Calhoun claimed that an entire state could exercise constitutional authority to render federal legislation unenforceable.
Americans possess numerous legitimate means of challenging objectionable laws, including political organizing, legislative reform, and constitutional litigation. These methods allow vigorous disagreement while preserving the institutions through which disputes are resolved. Nullification, as Calhoun envisioned it, asserted that an individual state could unilaterally exempt itself from federal legislation.
The Nullification Crisis demonstrated both the strengths and vulnerabilities of American federalism. Jackson’s determination to enforce federal law preserved national authority, while Clay’s compromise showed that political negotiation could resolve serious grievances without violence. Nevertheless, the underlying conflict over slavery and sovereignty persisted, ultimately contributing to the Civil War.
The enduring lesson concerns the distinction between challenging a law through constitutional procedures and claiming the authority to disregard it. Federalism inevitably produces disagreements over government power, but constitutional government depends upon established means of resolving them. The crisis of 1832–1833 illustrates the danger of allowing those disagreements to become competing claims of ultimate sovereignty—and the importance of preserving the rule of law amid political conflict.